Nicolaus Reimers

Nicolaus Reimers Ursus (bear ) (also Reymers, born February 2, 1551 Hennstedt (Dithmarschen ); † August 15, 1600 in Prague), also known with the nickname Raimarus Ursus, was an astronomer and imperial court mathematician. He was the first to Copernicus ' major work in the German language translated.

Background and Career

According to tradition, Reimers worked until the age of 18 years as a swineherd. He had no formal Latin School, which at that time gave access to the sciences, but was pure self-taught, not only the writing, reading and arithmetic taught himself, but also the scientific languages ​​Latin and Greek. The royal governor of Schleswig-Holstein Heinrich Rantzau recognized Reimers ' talents and encouraged him. For Rantzau he worked as a surveyor in the period from 1574 to 1584 and published in this context, in 1583 the Geodaesia Ranzoviana. In 1584 he visited probably through the mediation Rantzaus his friend, the astronomer Tycho Brahe on the island of Ven in the Öresund before Landskrona. The nickname Ursus first appears in 1588 in his publication Fundamentum Astronomicum. Cantor surmised, the nickname should probably mark it as ungeleckten Nordic Bear who opposes the plunder of his boys themselves. However, the epithet Ursus indicates the gender of Baren in Dithmar, was one of the Nicolaus Reimers Ursus.

In the years 1586-1587 Reimers remained at the court of Landgrave Wilhelm IV in Kassel, where he met with the instrument maker Jost Bürgi ( 1552-1632 ). The similarities in the sinking of the " school " education of the two friends will have this connected via the Professional addition, Bürgi could not Latin. Reimers therefore translated for Bürgi Copernicus ' De revolutionibus orbium Coelestium into German. The text is as a so-called " Grazer handwriting " and is considered the first German translation of Copernicus ' major work, three centuries before the Menzzer of which was printed in 1879.

From 1587 to 1591 Reimers taught mathematics at the Academy in Strasbourg, where she learned also Bürgis teacher Konrad Dasypodius know.

1591 he was appointed as court mathematician to the court of Emperor Rudolf II in Prague. In order to economically hedge he was incidentally appointed professor of mathematics at the University of Prague. This position as court scholar, he retained until shortly before his death, but gave them, not least because of the escalating dispute also legally with Brahe. He died on August 15, 1600 of tuberculosis and was buried on August 16, 1600 in the Bethlehem Chapel in Prague.

As imperial court mathematician followed him in office Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler.

The lunar crater Reimarus is named after him.

The dispute between Brahe and Reimers

Reimers had devised in September 1585, so time after his visit to Tycho Brahe on the island of Ven, in Pomerania, a new partial geocentric system of the planets, according to which the Earth rotates around its axis, the moon and sun are the otherwise stationary move earth, the planets Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, however, around the sun. He expressed in 1586 in Kassel from third parties These thoughts. Brahe had thereof obtained by Rothmann knowledge and the system released as his invention. Reimers ' publication Fundamentum Astronomicum ( 1588) collided with Brahe tychonischem worldview.

Brahe saw this charge exactly opposite Reimers and accused of plagiarism.

Nicolaus Reimers grabbed Brahe in his De Astronomicis Hypothesibus hard on, after which he went about this because of the insult to Reimers. Owen Gingerich documented the central role of Paul Wittich in the conflict.

Works

  • Grammatica Ranzoviana, in 1580.
  • Geodaesia Ranzoviana, Leipzig 1583rd
  • Nicolai Raymarine Ursi Dithmarsi Fundamentum Astronomicum, Strasbourg 1588th
  • Metamorphosis Logicae, Strasbourg 1589th
  • Nicolai Raymarine Ursi Dithmarsi Croius Puer seu Carmen Gratulatorium, Strasbourg 1589th
  • Old and also Rom. Write calendar auff 1593, Erfurt 1592nd
  • Prognosticon astrologicum this 1593rd Jars, Erfurt 1592nd
  • Old and New Schreibcalender auff the jhar 1594, Erfurt 1593rd
  • Nicolai Raymarine Ursi Dithmarsi Parentatio Jacobi Curtii, Prague 1594th
  • Nicolai Raimari Ursi Dithmarsi de Astronomicis Hypothesibus, Prague 1597 online.
  • Chronotheatron, Prague 1597th
  • Demonstrations Hipotheses Motuum Coelestium, Prague.
  • Nicolai Raimari Ursi Dithmarsi Arithmetica Analytica vulgo Cosa or algebra, Frankfurt / Oder 1601.
  • Nicolai Raimari Ursi Ditmarsi Chronological Beweisung, posthumously Nuremberg 1606 1606 Schleswig, Schleswig 1666.
Hennstedt (Dithmarschen) Copernicus (disambiguation) William IV, Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor Lunar craters Reimarus (crater) Tychonic system Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie Otto Liebmann American Philosophical Society Integrated Authority File
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